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Review

by Tony "Ensui" Chen

Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie

DVD

Synopsis:

Ryu has a brother? The young Shun, who has just come to Japan to meet Ryu, claims to be his long lost brother. Shun displays potential for the martial arts when he enters a Tournament. But shortly after displaying the same "Dark Hadou" energy that has been building in Ryu, Shun is kidnapped by the evil criminal empire, Shadowlaw. Ryu must now take the ultimate journey to not only find Shun but to find himself.

Review:

Synopsis:

Ryu has a brother? The young Shun, who has just come to Japan to meet Ryu, claims to be his long lost brother. Shun displays potential for the martial arts when he enters a Tournament. But shortly after displaying the same "Dark Hadou" energy that has been building in Ryu, Shun is kidnapped by the evil criminal empire, Shadowlaw. Ryu must now take the ultimate journey to not only find Shun but to find himself.

Review:

Being a fan of street fighter video games since the Super Nintendo days it was very exciting to hear the announcement that CAPCOM would be making Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie as a marking of the 10th anniversary of Street Fighter.

This is actually the first fighting Anime that I found had a purpose besides for the repetitive fighting between protagonists and antagonists. The relationship between one and his dark energy building within is something very unique. For the most part the plot was pretty remarkable for this genre of Anime. One thing I must mention about the plot though is that it is incomplete. The way it is wrapped up together at the end makes you have questions still circling in your mind about many of the details in the movie, especially if you are new to street fighter.

The movie is presented with a smashingly beautiful menu and is much more exquisite than many Anime menus seen in the past. There are many extras in this movie. Some included are the interviews of the cast and crew and the making of the movie clip.

The animation in the movie is extremely detailed. I swear it is one of the most glamorous pieces of Anime I have seen ever. The fights are so detailed that it beats Dragon Ball's trashy fighting animation by far. When a person got hit you could almost feel how much pain they were going through instead of the "oh yeah another punch…" thing. From the strongly detailed masculinity of the males to the sexy and cute Chun Li and Sakura this is surely a fine example of how Anime should be drawn.

Japanese voices match well with characters (as expected) and dubbing in this movie is fortunately good. The dubbed voices for most characters are nice and unlike many Animes most of the original script is kept in the dubbing. I can tell that the voice actors/actresses for the dubbed version of the movie really worked hard and did not keep the trend of bad dubbing from generation to generation of Anime. The background music goes really well with the mood of the movie and the sounds are strikingly impressive for the fistfights and special power attacks.

All in all though Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie is strictly for fans of Street Fighter or people who really like fighting Animes (Dragon Ball, Yū Yū Hakusho or Flame of Recca). This is surely one masterpiece none of you Kung Fu freaks want to miss.

Grade:

Production Info:

Overall : A-

+ Presentation, Animation, Dubbing etc. Basically everything technical in this movie is extremely well done with lots of hard work effort.− Confusion in the plot may come up after watching the end of the movie.

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